


Makes A Man

by Bagheera



Series: Pledge of Allegiance [2]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Dom/sub, F/M, House Cleaning, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Other, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Self-Acceptance, Sexual Fantasy, Situational Humiliation, Verbal Humiliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:35:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23647816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bagheera/pseuds/Bagheera
Summary: Nate deals with shower curtains, unemployment, toxic masculinity and accidentally being turned on when you're insulted by your household appliance. Sometimes, self-acceptance takes 200 years and working it all out with your kinky ghoul lover.
Relationships: Female Sole Survivor/Male Sole Survivor, John Hancock/Male Sole Survivor, Nate/Nora (Fallout)
Series: Pledge of Allegiance [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1702471
Comments: 11
Kudos: 50





	Makes A Man

**Author's Note:**

> This has four sections, two of them pre-war. The first section contains the dubious consent - Codsworth, at this point, is not sentient and doesn't truly get the implications. Read at your own discretion or skip it, but the scene with him and Nate is not physical, it's purely talking. The third section, with Hancock, is set during the several weeks spanned by chapter 12 of "Pledge of Allegiance". The fourth section is set after the Epilogue of "Pledge of Allegiance".

**1 - Nate**

Nate closed the door as quietly as he could, wiping the sweat from his brow as he set the keys down on the coffee table and dropped the bag in a corner. He was in the the kitchen and filling a glass with cold tap water when Codsworth emerged from the hallway with a soft hiss of his jet engines, doing an exaggerated, three-eyed double take. “Oh my, Sir, you’re back already? I didn’t hear the car in the driveway, I daresay my sensors need some retuning, ha ha! It is of course splendid to have you back - “

“Yeah, I’m back,” Nate muttered. He wondered who had decided that theatrics and awkward laughter needed to be included in the factory settings of a household appliance. You could tell Codsworth to shut up, of course, and today, he was sorely tempted, but it did feel unneccessarily cruel. And he didn’t want Nora to know he had messed up. She’d been in a good mood this morning as she left for work. 

He threw back the glass, wetting his parched throat with long, thirsty gulps.

“The hedges need trimming,” he told the bot. They didn’t, and sending Codsworth outside would make sure he’d notice the car wasn’t in the driveway, but that was a problem for later. For now, it was a relief to watch him trundle off.    
  
After a moment, Nate picked up the bag. Plastic with the store logo, and inside another plastic cover around the plastic shower curtain, all of it rustling and crackling with static electricity as he tore open the wrapping. Little yellow flowers, cheerful, innocuous.    
  
The shower curtain that had come with the house was a boring, neutral white. It was barely a month in use, fresh and white, no reason to throw it away. The yellow flowers were a waste, and maybe Nora would say so. The environment. The mortgage. 

Nate wasn’t sure why he’d picked it up at the store. Why he’d driven all the way to Lexington to Happy Homes & Gardens to promptly forget what he’d wanted to buy. Why he had wandered through the story aimlessly among the housewives and elderly couples, blinded by their curious stares, stares that said that they didn’t know whether to salute or spit at his feet, whether he was home from the front or a draft dodger.    
  
There was dust on the shower rod as he took off the old curtain, a thin coating. Nate wiped his fingers on his pants, and then went and raided Codsworth’s little broom closet for Pine-sol and a cleaning rag, and sat down on the edge of the tub to wipe the rod clean. It reminded him strangely of cleaning his gun, except for the smell, like fresh lemons and pine, like perfume, not like the harsh chlorine they used to clean the latrines. He tried to remember what his mother’s cleaning smelled like, but it wasn’t like this and that made him wonder if Nora liked the smell of it, if she’d picked it for that. But Nora hated cleaning, that was why she had wanted the Mr Handy. For the baby, too, but really for the housework. “I’m not doing that and having a kid and going to work, too,” she’d said. 

He hadn’t objected. It wasn’t like he could even if he had felt the need to - in this economy, with war-time shortages everywhere, he’d never find a job that paid as well as hers. Hell, even if the economy had been great, the best he could probably have down was construction work, power armor training came in handy there, but Nate didn’t know the first thing about building houses, only how to shell them to the ground. 

He washed the dust off the rag, finished hanging up the shower curtain, and then stopped. Looked at himself in the mirror. Hair growing in shaggy, badly in need of a cut. Nate’s dad had pointed it out the last time they had visited. He’d promised to do it, yes, Abba, I won’t go to job interviews looking like that. But he’d need a job interview for that first, and with the economy crashing so hard, his parents didn’t have to worry about him looking like some college liberal to potential employers. 

Nate wrung out the rag. There were hairs and wet lint sticking to the sink now, so he dipped a bit more cleaner onto the rag and started wiping it off. Nate had hated being ordered to do this, but it didn’t feel like punishment, cleaning his own home. In fact, it was what he’d hoped walking home in the sun would do for him. Simple, repetitive movement, just the feel of the cold tiles, the wet rag. Dull work. He put more pressure on, scraping at the rough ridges between the tiles. The rag wasn’t good for that, so he left it on the toilet seat, taking his toothbrush instead. It needed a change anyway.    
  
It was warm, even here, and the air in the small bathroom got humid and stuffy quickly. Sweat beaded on his forehead as Nate got down to his knees, working on the tiles outside of the tub, the floor. Humming, tunelessly, to the rhythm of scraping away at the simple geometric pattern, until suddenly something thumped to the floor in the hall, startling him so much he knocked into the towel holder. 

“My word, Sir, what are you doing? You’re not - you can’t possibly be cleaning!”

Nate huffed, rolling the shoulder he’d bruised on the towel holder as he turned to face the bot. His throat was dry. “Finished with the hedges already?”

Codsworth bobbed in distress above the roll of bin bags he had dropped. “Please, Sir, if my work isn’t satisfactory, I shall remedy that immediately - heavens, if Mum could see that it has come to this - ” 

The bot’s fussing kicked up something inside Nate, annoyance, but something else, a heated cloud of feeling rising from his belly. “Am I supposed to sit on the fucking couch watching TV all day?”

“Goodness, no - I would never presume to tell Sir what to do, but surely if you are feeling energetic, you could mow the lawn, or build that dog house you were talking about, or -”

He could. He could do that, but the fence was only waist high, the neighbours’ wives and kids enjoying the sunny afternoon, and Nate didn’t have the first idea how to build a dog house. 

“Why?” he asked belligerently, feeling a fool already for picking a fight with a Mr Handy. “You got a problem with this?”

And damn whoever had programmed a robot to do that thing with three eyes, the same look the cashier had had when she’d handed him the curtain, the pity, the mild disapproval of the old ladies at the store watching him look at flowery patterns, trying to remember which colors Nora liked. 

“Goodness, the very idea, no Sir! But it is, if you allow me to say so, not a man’s work, surely you would rather - “

And that vague, sweltering heat in his belly welled up and pulled taut, showing its true colors. Nate could feel it crawling up his neck, down his back, tight and hot, and he found himself saying in a husky voice, “Say - say that again.”

Codsworth’s eyes wavered as he did a confused little half-turn in the air. “Please forgive me for being so forward - “

He was only a robot. Nate could tell him to shut up, he could tell him to power down in his closet, he could leave him turned off until Nora got home, he could order the bot to not tell her about this, ever - 

“Say it again,” Nate said. 

There was a hesitation, almost as though the Mr Handy understood that it didn’t understand this. Four weeks out of the factory, and here he was trying to navigate the twisted depths of a pervert’s mind. Bet you haven’t been programmed for this, Nate thought as he waited, kneeling, for Codsworth to finally figure out the incongruous scene of his master, barefoot and up to his elbows in cleaning supplies, framed in innocent little yellow flowers and the smell of pine fresh. Through the open bedroom window, a child’s shrill laughter wafted in on the summer breeze, and then Codsworth said, slowly and cautiously, “Are you certain, Sir? Wouldn’t you rather I finish this for you - “

The bot faltered under Nate’s stare, falling silent, and then said, in a wooden monotone, “If you do insist, Sir. It’s not a man’s work.”

“Tell me what you’re seeing,” Nate said, catching a breath and not releasing it. He was crossing a line, he knew it, and the bot had eyes, three of them, he could see what this was doing to Nate, but that was the point, wasn’t it? “Tell me what I … am.”

“Oh, Sir,” Codsworth said, genuinely worried now. “You do look a little over-heated, perhaps a bit too much time in the sun? You’re wearing your good trousers, too, if you must toil like this, I’m sure there’s something better suited -”

Nate felt himself shake, laughter trembling somewhere at the back of his throat, and he could hear the words even though he couldn’t say then:  _ Get me something that suits me, then _ . He could picture Codsworth returning with something from the back of their wardrobe, some old, faded smock, little flowers long out of fashion, and he would take off his pants, and hand them to Codsworth, and then - 

“What am I?” Half-strangled and needy, like he was gagging for filth.

Codsworth floundered. “Sir, I - “

Nate stared at him mutely, eyes burning, his throat parched with anticipation. But Codsworth couldn’t say it. He wasn’t programmed to call him a sissy, a nancy, a pathetic little queer, a disgrace to his country, his family, a sick, twisted freak, he probably didn’t even know those words, asking him to do that was like forcing yourself on a dog or a - 

“Go,” Nate ground out, barking at Codsworth like he was a new recruit, “power down, into fuel save mode. Now.”   
  
“As you wish, Sir.”

He waited, breathing hard, for the distant whirrs and clicks, then silence. Just birds, kids kicking a ball outside, someone calling for a dog, or a boy. And him, Private First Class Nathan Hale, veteran of Operation Diomede, kneeling on the bathroom floor and choking on lust after his Mr Handy had accidentally called him a sissy.    
  
Laughing hurt, but it was better than not breathing at all. He leaned back against the tub, the sound rough as it escaped his throat. So that was it then. All these years thinking he wasn’t that kind of queer, at least he didn’t wanna put on lipstick and a dress, huh -

Nate tried to calm his breathing. Slow, even, counting backwards, like this was a bad dream, like he’d woken to the feeling of the bed rocked by shells exploding, the ice cracking underneath. Yeah, think of that, it might make this go away. Around three, or two, he reached an inner quiet strong enough to carry him. Did he want to put on a dress? Not that Nora’s would fit him, he’d just bust the buttons, ruin the shoulders, but if they did… he pictured himself putting them on. A nice one, not some faded smock. Maybe the dark blue, the one she had worn when she’d taken him to the theatre, or the tight black one. And heels, he supposed, high and pointed, squeezing his toes, making his hips sway as he walked. Sheer pantyhose, or stockings and garters, and he’d have to shave his legs first, or it wouldn’t look right.    
  
That wasn’t it. Even here, alone in his own four walls, his goddamn house where he could do what he wanted, he didn’t want to put on a dress to feel pretty. No. He wanted the abuse, the contempt, he wanted someone to see it and hate him for it. Even that new perversion couldn’t be simple, could it. Nate took a deep breath, and ran his fingertips along the fly of his pants. 

He closed his eyes. Inside his head, scenes like a garbled roll of film. Codsworth, telling him he wasn’t a real man. Watching him scrub the floor. Disgust in that posh synthesized voice. Telling him how to do it right,  _ if that’s all you’re good for _ . Codsworth, appalled to be owned by a man who liked to do women’s work, who liked to be told to take off his clothes.  _ If you must toil like this, Sir, you might as well do it in something better suited to someone like you. _

Scrubbing the floor in just his underwear while Codsworth hovered behind him, seeing exactly how pathetically turned on he was, yeah, there it was.    
  
Nate laughed again, tripping over his own breath, canting his hips upward with a shiver of humiliation. He squeezed himself through his pants, biting his lips, and then gave up with a sob, heaving himself upright and popping the buttons of his pants, shoving them down over his ass along with his boxers.    
  
_ That won’t do at all, Sir, just look at you, what would the neighbors say? _ Oh yes, what would they say. Perhaps next time Nate went to the store, he’d buy a feather duster, and some rubber gloves in his size, and look the cashier in the eyes and smile.    
  
_ Yes. It has to be just right, just perfect when my wife gets home.  _   
  
Nate let himself list to the side, one arm resting on the toilet lid, next to the bottle of pine-sol, and wrapped his fingers so tightly around his dick it felt like a punishment. 

Nora, getting home.  _ How was your day, honey?  _ Hanging up her blazer, sinking down onto the couch with a throaty sigh of relief, her belly already showing so much, he always wanted to just take off her shoes for her and rub her feet.  _ Damn _ , she’d say,  _ I wish you’d fix me a drink. Or let me smoke, just one cigarette. At least tell me we’ve got ice in the fridge. Where’s Codsworth off to?  _

_ I made him power down after asking him to call me names in the bathroom _ .

The lift of her brows, a flash of blue under her dark lashes, the quirk of her lips as she took him in. Holding out her hand, he’d pull her up easily, her fingers curling under his chin,  _ Names, Nathan honey. What sort of names? _

Nate bit his lip, thumb circling the head of his cock, the details blurring in his head, jumping forward to him right here on the floor, at her feet, her fingers raking through his hair, sharp nails scratching at his scalp, voice harder than it ever was, maybe in the courtroom, maybe then, maybe she’d talk to him like he deserved it,  _ I want to see you make a mess and clean it up.  _

His dick twitched, balls pulling tight, a sob spilling from him as he imagined her looking down at the fat drops of cum on the clean tiles, his hands shaking on the rag as he bent forward, wiping it up, and Nora leaning back against the door, hiking up her skirt, fingers hooking into her pantyhose, rolling it down. Not desperately, like he was jerking himself now, but slowly, deliberately, making him watch as she rubbed her clit through her panties, and then patting his cheek,  _ Come on, darling, your wifely duties aren’t done - _

He came with the vivid sense memory of his lips pressed to her lace panties, breathing in the rich smell, the heat, the scratch of hair through the thin fabric, sucking the wetness through it as she dug her nails into the back of his neck and rocked forward. 

His elbow slid out from under him, knocking down the bottle of cleaner as he spilled into his fingers, dripping onto his thigh, onto the cold floor between his knees. He sagged against the toilet, breathing hard. On his lips not her smell, but lemon and pine and the faint acrid smell of the toilet brush, and somewhere, distantly, the aroma of a barbecue wafting in through an open window. Nate remained where he was until his breathing calmed. A shiver ran down his back at the sweat cooling and his head, at least for a few moments, was full of a pleasant, buzzing silence. He looked at his sticky fingers, coated in white, and closed his eyes again, resting his forehead on the smooth curve of the toilet lid. 

He still had hours before she came home. 

**2 - Nora**

She found Nate on the porch, facing the brook and the forest, his feet bare in the buzzing, dry grass of their back garden. Relief was quickly followed by annoyance that he had had her worried. At nearly seven months pregnant, she was getting emotional, and it was hard to keep it in check at work, leaving her vulnerable when she got home. Usually, Nate was perfect for that. As oblivious as he was in some respects - and god, Nora couldn’t help smiling at the thought of him blearily staring at the fridge, searching for the bacon that sat there, square in the middle right in front of him - he never failed to pick up on these softer moments. It didn’t make him anxious or irritated, no ‘maybe you should lie down a bit’, no ‘you’re being hormonal again’. Instead, she would catch him looking at her with that expression that always made her wonder how he had lasted so long in the army, how a man like him had managed to survive killing, year after year, and not go quietly insane. 

One of the girls in the secretarial pool had a husband who’d just come back on medical leave. Infantry, same as Nate. Alice had been so happy to have him back, talking about nothing else, Jim this and Jim that, and now she kept calling in sick.

Nora had asked Nate, once, if he wanted to see someone. Marty, from college, he was a psychologist. ‘He’s like us,’ she’d said, ‘you don’t have to worry about him.’ But Nate had given her a look so wounded, so surprised, at the mere suggestion that she’d never brought it up again. ‘I’ll find a job,’ he’d said, like he thought it was about that, ‘soon as the economy gets better.’

“Hey,” Nora said softly, touching his shoulder. “Make some room.”

He startled, in that way he had when he was deep in thought and had to pull himself back from it like a diver scrambling for the last slivers of sunlight. He moved the beer that stood forgotten at his side and offered her a hand as she sat. There was a strange smell about him, one that she couldn’t immediately place. He looked down again as she settled, and his arms resting on his knees. She touched his back, warm through the thin, worn cotton of his shirt. “Where’s the car, honey?”

“I fucked up,” he said. “I’m gonna get it tomorrow.”

He was fine, he was here, and still Nora felt her heart jump, felt the baby stir with a painful kick. “Did you have an accident?”

“No.” He was silent for a long time, long lashes covering his eyes, and then he reached up and wiped his face. “I got us a new shower curtain. It’s uh… I know we didn’t need a new one, but… I thought you would like it.”

Nora petted his head, the soft, dark hair growing out into thick waves, and pulled him down against her shoulder, kissing the crown of his head. “Nate. Sweetheart. What’s wrong?”

His voice was muffled, and rough. “I’m wrong. What kind of man goes shopping for shower curtains on a Tuesday morning while his pregnant wife goes to work and his country goes to hell? I… fuck, I left the car in Lexington, I was so - “

“Did someone say something to you? At the store?”

He was silent, then he laughed. “No. No one said anything. But I saw them looking - “

“Idiots,” she cut in, startling him “Sanctimonious assholes.” He laughed again, more real this time, and she felt the tightness in her chest recede. “Is that… Pine-sol? Honey, did you bathe in it or something?”

“I…” There was a hitch in his voice, his back tensing once more against her arm, and then he lifted his head from her shoulder. In the fading evening light, his eyes looked dark, like those of the deer that you could see from afar if you went for a long hike in the forest behind Sanctuary Hills. He licked his lips. Nora knew that look of fear and shame and want. She had to bite the side of her tongue not to grin, because what was this now, a new delicious secret? He always got so worked up about these things, and she felt for him, really, she badly wished Nate could have had a few years at college, but it was also adorable. 

“Remember the Cape,” she told him. That night in the hotel at the seaside, just before she proposed to him. She’d made him promise not to lie to her, not about this, he could keep his secrets if he needed to, but she never wanted his fear, his shame to extend to her. She’d hoped that he would take it to heart more, that with his ring on her finger he’d lay down these burdens. But she was beginning to see that it would take years to slowly heal the parts where he had broken himself. 

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, his broad shoulders hunching a little, and then muttered, “I cleaned the bathroom. And then I - I jerked off there after Codsworth told me a real man wouldn’t enjoy women’s work.”

Nora sucked in a breath, mouth dropping open, “You did what?” and then she had to bite her whole fist to keep from laughing. “Oh god, Nate - I love you, honey, but Jesus, Codsworth? Really? How could y- oh, it’s - “

She waved, trying to catch her breath, “Sorry, sorry, I’m not laughing at you, it’s just - I love you so much, this is why I married you.”

That, and the way he was looking at her now, embarrassed but smiling that sweet, crooked smile of his, his hands loose in his lap, no lashing back at her. Having him was like riding a large horse that could trample you in a second, and yet shivered and shied strange noises. He exhaled, softly, and opened his lips to the gentle kiss she gave him. 

Then she fixed him with a serious look. The kind she normally reserved for clients who thought it a good idea to lie to their attorney. 

“Nate. I need you to be honest with me, okay? Are you angry? Does it bother you that I’m the one going to work?”

“No,” he said, immediately, the hesitation only following when he had already spoken. “I’m not angry.”

He wasn’t, not at her. She could see that, the way his gaze brimmed with that aimless, inward fury. That anger that found no purchase anywhere, because it was directed at the whole world, at things so large he couldn’t change them, could barely understand. She brushed her thumb over his cheekbone. No tears, somehow, his eyes were dry. She almost wished they weren’t. 

“I know. Okay. Do you want us to do that? I mean, would you like me to… tell you these things Codsworth told you, what was it, that you weren’t acting like a real man? I could critique your shower curtain, you know, I’m sure it’s incredibly girly…”

He did not speak for too long, his cheek tense under her touch, his breath quick, making himself small. Perhaps he needed her to just do it, perhaps making him ask for it was too much. Nora tried to think of a way, something mean enough to startle him out of his nervous stillness. But it was hard to insult him at a moment when he looked so vulnerable, and then, across the street Mrs Rosa called her girls to dinner in a melodious sing-song, and Nate released the breath he had been holding. 

“No.” He laughed. 

“Okay.” She leaned closer, kissing his temple, and whispered to him, “Some other time maybe.”

**3 - Hancock**

Fahrenheit had her cast still up on the table, her crutches leaning against the couch, and Hancock was too absorbed in Yefim’s blocky numbers, rendered in sharp definition by the mentat dissolving under his tongue, to get up and fetch the ledger. 

“Hey,” he said, snapping his fingers without looking up. In his periphery, he saw Nate jerking out of his vacant, thousand mile stare. “Fetch me that red book, will ya?”

Nate got up quickly. Eager, as always, and probably grateful for something to do. Numbers weren’t his thing, Hancock could tell. The ideal bodyguard, or the ideal lover, too loyal and too oblivious to ever give away the secrets of Hancock’s operations. 

Yefim’s numbers didn’t quite check out. Hancock needed to compare them to what Marowski had told him, to figure out if they were doing deals on the side, cutting him out. It would be a disappointment, the Bobrovs had been good business partners this whole time, but it certainly wouldn’t be a surprise. 

Still no ledger. Hancock glanced up, impatiently, and found Nate bent over the desk, hands wandering aimlessly over the piles and stacks of books, letters, holotapes and random junk, the half buried terminal and over-flowing ash-trays. 

“C’mon, ya seen a book before, big guy, haven’t ya?” Hancock called. 

Nate made a frustrated noise, but the now idling extra capacity the chems had given Hancock insisted that it was interesting he didn’t complain about the insult. “It’s a mess in here,” he said over his shoulder. “Someone should clean this up.”

Hancock expelled air past his teeth. “Didn’t hire ya for naggin’ me.”

“Didn’t hire me at all,” Nate responded, soft and pointed, still not genuinely bothered. He lifted up another pile of papers, and sneezed gently at the dust. 

Fahrenheit clicked her tongue, amused perhaps, or growing irritated with the delay. Hancock ignored her. He was bored with the numbers game anyway. 

“Maybe I should make ya clean it up,” he drawled. “If ya wanna play housewife.”

He saw Nate freeze in place, his broad shoulders lifted and tense, the muscles in his arms bunched tight. Something was crumpling in his grip, damn, that was an empty canister of jet, just crushed to pieces. When he laughed, it was wooden. “Yeah, right.”

Then he found the book, finally, and brought it over. Hancock’s gaze danced over him: darkly flushed skin, a faint sheen of sweat, lips he had bitten a moment ago, eyes not meeting Hancock. Yeah, that little tease had left him all hot and bothered. 

Hancock grinned. Flicked through the ledger, took in the numbers. They jumped in his head, like bugs in the tall summer grass, quick, chaotic, then suddenly righting themselves. “There,” he said, handing Fahr the ledger, finger pointing to the spot where Marowski had fudged his numbers. Not as smart as he thought he was. 

She frowned, then nodded, seeing it, too. “What do you want me do to?”

“Let him sweat,” Hancock said. “For now.” 

Same as he was doing with Nate, who had sat down again, at the far end of the couch, his stare a lot less vacant. Troubled and furtive, like he was hoping it would blow over. Hancock took his time, didn’t send Fahrenheit off straight away, but when she did leave, he turned to Nate and looked at him, silently, letting him feel the weight of his grin. Letting him know he wasn’t off the hook. 

Hancock leaned back, one elbow on the armrest of the couch, tapping the ancient leather. “Give Ellis a shout, will ya,” he drawled finally. “Tell him we’ve got a mess to clean up.”

Nate looked pinned in place, like an angry Brahmin held by both nose rings, and then he got up, slowly, and sleep walked out of the room. Hancock had a laugh as soon as he was gone, a silent chuckle. He liked Nate, liked him a lot, but a few days ago Daisy had called him his new favorite chew toy, and that was also true. 

Nate returned with a blank expression, blank with mortified terror, Ellis in tow. The watchman was carrying the bucket and scrubber, craning his head looking for the bodies, and when he found none, he gave Hancock an accusing stare. “This some kinda joke, boss?”

“Nah, you’re good.” 

Hancock smiled at Nate. Nate shook his head, slowly, and Hancock blew him a small kiss. “Nate’s gonna give this place a lil’ tidy. Ain’t up to his delicate pre-war sensibilities, right? If he’s gonna spend all his time here entertainin’ me, he wants it to be nice and homey.” 

Ellis had been a triggerman since he could hold a gun, and in Hancock’s employ since the moment he took over the town. He didn’t bat an eyelid, but set down the bucket, gave Nate a once-over, and then, to Hancock’s delight, spat his chewed up toothpick into the bucket. “All yours, sweetheart,” he told Nate. 

It was a joke, and that was why Hancock wasn’t gonna break his remaining teeth for him, but Nate, dear, wound up Nate, clearly couldn’t tell the difference. For a moment, Hancock thought that Nate was gonna swing at Ellis, judging by the way his hands curled to fists. But Ellis left, unharmed, dragging the door shut behind him because he didn’t want to see what they got up to, and resumed his post in the hall. 

“Enough,” Nate said, his voice tight and bluff and a bit brittle at the edges. “The place really is a mess, no need to give me a hard time for saying it.”

Hancock shook his head. They both knew that wasn’t what he was doing - if Nate thought he was actually pissed about this, he’d be acting differently. Apologizing, probably. This, though, the angry coil of embarrasment, the radstag in the search-lights look, that made it perfectly clear that Nate knew this was going somewhere else. 

It was a good game to play on mentats. They weren’t Hancock’s go to fun-time chems, but he needed his wits for this one, needed to pull up every little scrap of knowledge about pre-war life to get it right, or this would end with Nate laughing his ass off at some silly misconception rather than begging Hancock to rail him on the floor.

Hancock ran the tip of his tongue along the sharp insides of his teeth, recalling the most pre-war things he knew. Daisy and Kent and Arlen. The old Shroud serials. Nick, Miss Edna’s lessons in school, stained, crinkled pages, old memories long buried by chems and adulthood, and how resurfacing with the help of a little chem-based clarity, innocent and waiting to be plundered.

Oh yeah. “Fix me a drink before you start, will ya,  _ sweetheart _ ?” 

Low-lidded, under the brim of his hat, he watched Nate’s reaction - the little put-upon toss of his head, the corners of mouth twitching like he was both irritated and very close to laughing. “Don’t call me that,” Nate said on an unsteady breath. 

But even as he said it, he moved. First thing Nate did was take off his leather jacket. He did it slowly, almost awkwardly, none of the usual smoothness in his movements. Draped it tidyly over the back of the couch, when most days, he’d just toss it on the floor where he stood, too eager to care. Shivered a little as he stood there in just his white T-shirt, and then, slowly, went over to the cabinet where Hancock kept the liquor. The glass rattled as he poured three fingers of moonshine, his grip on the bottle shaking. 

Without turning back to Hancock, he set the bottle down and tried, once more, to fight this. “Come on. This is silly.”

“You’re silly,” Hancock told him. And another line, this one cribbed from an old Incredibles comic, “Worrying your pretty little head about things when you got me to take care of things.”

“My pretty little - “

That was some genuine outrage, and Hancock cut it off imediately. “C’mere.”

He came, carrying the glass, a mutinous look on his face. As he bent to put the glass down on the coffee table, Hancock hooked a finger into the fraying collar of his T-shirt, pulling him down. There was a stiff resistance, and then their eyes met, and Nate’s thick lashes dipped, and he went down on one knee, lips parted, the anger turning into something wretched and helpless. 

“You ever done this before?” Hancock murmured. 

“I -” Nate’s voice hitched, he shook his head, then licked his lips guiltily, the denial coming out rough and low. “What - what do you mean, this?”

“Mmm. We’re gonna have fun.”  _ I’m definitely gonna have fun with you.  _ “Just fun.”    
  
Hancock let go of his collar, and reached up, running his fingers through Nate’s hair. It was lovely, really something to make a ghoul feel envious. He kept it tied back most of the time, but it was still a bit short for that, and a few of the thick, black locks would always escape, framing Nate’s face. Hancock tugged at the little strip of leather, releasing the rest of it from the tie, and it fell forward, soft waves falling nearly down to Nate’s shoulders. He shivered at the feeling. 

“You are pretty,” Hancock told him. “And you know it, don’t ya? Don’t lie to me. I seen ya shavin’ every morning, you’d chop it off in a heartbeat if ya didn’t like feelin’ pretty.” 

Nate’s adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed a soft noise, somewhere at the back of his throat, almost a keen. Damn. Hancock had pushed around a few people in his time, played more than few of these games, but he’d rarely met someone so into it, and so deliciously ashamed about it. 

Hancock tugged at his hair, sharply, forcing Nate to look up. “Say it.”

Nate’s expression was searching, unsure, still startled by all of this. Attempting to look annoyed. “Come on, Hancock, cut it out - “

The backhand was light, so light all Nate would feel was the insult. He touched his cheek nonetheless. “Yeah,” Hancock scoffed. “That how ya talk to your man?”

For a second, Nate’s demeanour changed, the breathless insecurity shattered by a flash of recognition, amusement, delight, and Hancock had to force himself not to grin back in pride, because yeah, he was good at this, he was in the fucking zone, hitting all the right notes, making some honest to god music. The brightness of Nate’s smile lasted only a second, followed by the inevitable pit as he realized he was giving in to this, letting it happen, that he didn’t have the willpower to resist. 

Good for him. 

“Gimme a kiss,” Hancock told him. Nate sighed, and dipped his head forward, eyes closing. The kiss was different from their usual fast and rough undoing of each other, soft and almost shy, and Hancock would have liked to take his time with that new side of Nate, but instead, he planted a fast one on him, and patted his cheek. “There ya go, doll. That’s more like it.”

He let his hand wander a bit, down Nate’s chest, feeling the heat of him, the firm muscle. Through the worn fabric, he could almost feel the dusting of hair around his nipples as he flicked them with his knuckles, played with them. Nate had never reacted much to having them touched, but now Hancock could see him grit his teeth, the muscles in his jaws bunching as he held his breath and then released it, sharply. “That’s - not -”

Hancock let his hand drop down, reaching past Nate for the glass, smirking at him as he took a lazy sip. 

“Playin’ coy all of a sudden, sweetheart?” Yeah, he hated being called that, hated it so much it almost made him come in his pants. “Bit late for that, ain’t it, we’ve only been here for two weeks and I’ve already had you over every surface in this room.”

A sliver of desperate hope, and holy shit, wasn’t that just the ticket, having a guy like Nate practically begging to be fucked by him. “We could just do that - “

Hancock shook his head. “Aren’t you a lazy little slut.” Nate twitched, yeah, too far, too soon, there was that flicker of amusement again, now with a scandalized edge. Hancock pushed past it. “This place is looking like a mutant’s den, and you wanna lie on your back all day.”

Nate laughed, softly, disbelieving, and murmured, “Yeah, uh… what will the neighbors think.”

Fuck. Maybe he was right, maybe they didn’t need to play around, maybe it was time to bend him over the table and fuck him silly before Hancock said something stupid, like *I fucking love you* -

Nate interrupted that dangerous train of thought by getting up, his gaze still down-turned, the smile leveling into a subdued expression as he licked his lips. “I - I shouldn’t - I should wear something better suited to… housework.”

“Shit, I ain’t got a maid’s outfit it that’s what ya - “

Nate silenced him with a look. He bent over and untied his laces, taking off his heavy boots, and then stripped off his shirt and his jeans, putting them with his jacket over the couch. There was something distant about him, a look of concentration, lost somewhere no one else could follow. It didn’t bother Hancock, he knew what that was like, knew what the other side of this felt like, when you didn’t have to stay sharp to control the game, when you could just sink into it. 

Nate, in just his boxers, was all long limbs and rangy grace, legs and arms dusted with dark hair, toned calves and thighs made for running. He had tan lines, but even the parts of him that didn’t see much sun were a rich shade of honey brown. The boxers he wore were one of only two pairs he owned, although not for long, Hancock thought - he liked seeing Nate in the jacket he’d given him and he was planning to continue dressing him for as long as Nate would accept those kinds of gifts. The cotton fabric of the boxers had once been black, but was now faded to a thin grey, and the waistband had lost some of its elasticity, making them ride low. Nate bent to pick up the scrubber, and Hancock realized this was how he intended to do this. Half-naked. 

“Fuck me,” Hancock muttered under his breath. 

The floor did not need a scrubbing. It was long beyond that, the only reason they kept the bucket around was if there was blood or sick that needed to be slopped up. Even Abraxo wouldn’t win this fight. On the other hand Hancock didn’t want Nate to actually try his hand at tidying the desk, that chaos had a method to it, and as much as Nate was clearly turned on by this fantasy, Hancock doubted he’d do anything but turn it into a different sort of chaos. 

So the floor it was. 

“What did they use ta say? When you’re done I wanna be able to eat off the floor?”

“You’d have to eat something other than moonshine and chems first,” Nate murmured as he dunked the brush in the bucket and knelt a few feet from the coffee table, within Hancock’s view. 

Hancock snorted. “Shut your mouth and get workin’.”

Nate gave it a try, scrubbing at the five-hundred year old wood experimentally. The water became brown immediately, and that was all he was going to achieve, but he kept at it. Hancock let him work, drinking, and using the moment to adjust his own pants a little, and to think about his next move. He watched Nate, the play of muscles in his long arms and back as he bent forward and pressed the scrubber against the dark stains in the wood, the fall of his hair. His first attempt had been tentative, but more and more it turned into genuine work, as if he was truly laboring at the task, his chest expanding, his soft mouth open, panting a little. But it wasn’t all exertion, hell, to get Nate to work up a sweat like this without the added humiliation, he’d probably have to make him scrub the whole State House from the basement to the attic. 

“Ain’t the first time you mopped a floor, I can see that,” Hancock said. “That how it was when you were married?”

Nate looked up sharply, still bent over the scrubber, his knuckles white around it. His eyes were dark, with shame, with desire, but now also with a different fire, anger and betrayal at the line crossed. Hancock could see it in the curl of his shoulders, the tension in his back, like a coiled spring, a heartbeat away from lunging at him and punching his lights out. 

“That’s not - “ Nate’s voice was flat, and hard, he drew a ragged breath, then started again, “I… it was how you were… punished. In the army. Clean your armor with a toothbrush, mop the latrines, I - I had to do it a lot.”

With a toothbrush, what a waste. Fucking pre-war folks. 

“That so?” Hancock said lightly. “Little trooper like you, what’s there to punish - ya must’ve wanted it badly enough to give them a reason, hmm?”

“No, I -” Nate shuddered. He was hard, tenting his boxers, and judging by his expression, it was a sweet agony. “I didn’t - “

“You like it,” Hancock told him. “Big tough guy, and this is how ya like it. Playing the little wife for me, busting your panties ‘cause it’s all out now, I seen it, Ellis knows how it is. Ya think he’s gonna keep his mouth shut?”   
  
Nate had let go of the scrubber, sitting back on his bare heels. He was probably itching to touch himself. Hancock clicked his tongue as a warning and swung himself up to his feet, ambling over to the cabinet to pour himself more of the moonshine. Nate didn’t turn to look at him, staring ahead, but he tensed as Hancock came up behind him, his breath going quicker. 

“Keep going,” Hancock said, and slowly emptied his glass on the floor, splashing the wood with liquor. Nate twitched as the puddle touched his knees, fumes stinging his eyes and nose. Hancock gave Nate’s left buttock a soft nudge with his boot. “You ain’t done, honey.”

Nate struggled visibly, and then gave in with a small groan, bending forward again, on all fours now, sweeping the scrubber over the wet floor. All it really did was spread the mess, but Nate was clearly beyond caring. As Hancock ran his fingers along Nate’s lower back he responded with a helpless, strangled whimper, tilting up his hips, almost pushing into Hancock’s touch.    
  
“Yeah, you want it,” he chuckled, and tugged down Nate’s boxers. They tangled with his erection for a moment, then his dick bobbed free and they slipped down his thighs, baring his ass. Hancock left him that way, let him keep scrubbing. The view was glorious, that taut skin and smooth muscle, thighs framing Nate’s balls, swinging slightly as he kept at the impossible task of mopping up liquid with a brush, knees slipping wider apart as he offered himself up, so close to begging for it. He could probably hear Hancock undoing the knot that kept the flag around his waist, the rough, dry noise of ghoul skin on ghoul skin as he took himself in hand, the sound of him walking over to the desk and returning, the now slicker slap of skin. 

Hancock didn’t make him ask for it. There really wasn’t a need to, Nate was doing it with every line of his body, coming apart at the seams, shivering as Hancock went down on one knee behind him, jerking himself. He pulled Nate closer, and the scrubber dropped to the floor with a clatter as Hancock pressed the head of his dick against the soft, puckered nub of Nate’s hole. 

“Pick it up,” he told him. “Come on, keep at it, clean up that mess.”

Nate didn’t manage to do much besides hold on to the brush as Hancock pushed into him. The last time he’d had him was this morning, but he was still fucking snug without prep, trying to hold in a groan. Hancock gave his ass a little slap. “You can do better, sugar, I wanna hear ya. Give us some sweet lil noises, let everyone know you’re being a good girl tonight.”

Nate did moan at the next thrust. It was reedy and low, he could do better, it was getting hard to concentrate enough to get him there with his dick sinking deeper into the tight grip of Nate’s ass, and Nate such a picture of desperate supplication, trying to work the brush, trying to keep his voice down, and failing at both. Keeping it slow was hard, but Hancock managed, at least for a while, one hand on the small of Nate’s back, lazily rolling his hips and now and then reminding Nate to keep up the show. “There’s another spot, you’re not even any good at this, are ya - “

“Please,” Nate whimpered, “please, more, please - “

Hancock pulled out just as the urge to lay into him became overwhelming, and pushed back to his feet. Knees complaining, as always, but the sight of Nate down on all fours with his boxers tangled around his legs and head bent was worth it. “Look at ya,” Hancock murmured, jacking himself hard, letting him hear, letting him know what he was doing. 

Nate was lost in it, shivering, his hips twitching forward, blindly seeking release. He didn’t touch himself, his hands still curled tightly around the brush, and as Hancock’s cum striped his back, Nate’s shoulders gave in and he sagged down, forehead pressed to the still filthy floor, breathing hard. 

Hancock shook out his dick, adding a few more drops, then he slowly tucked himself in. He wanted to laugh, to shrug off the last of the tension, but he could tell Nate wasn’t ready. Fuck, but he went deep. Hancock understood getting really into it, sucking dick so long your head went dizzy, enjoying a slap here, or a bit of choking, but he himself had never been one to really go for mind games. Maybe in his own head, when he was alone, but just dropping yourself headlong into this at someone’s feet, it went against his nature. 

“Hey,” he said. “Come on, yeah, up here.”

It took another nudge with his boot for Nate to react, to slowly sit up. His face was as much of a mess as his back - he wasn’t crying, but his hair stuck to the sweat on his forehead, to his lashes and lips. Hancock brushed it back gently, checking Nate’s unfocused gaze, yeah, still lost somewhere in that twisted little part of himself. Hancock pulled him a little closer, against the side of his leg, stroking his hair still, murmuring, “Damn, that was hot. You got any other skeletons like that buried in your closet, I’ll drag ‘em out any time.” 

Nate exhaled at that, a shuddering soft sound that might have been a laugh. Hancock chuckled, too, squeezed him a little closer, and said, “Go on. Touch yourself. You wanna.”

Like a sleepwalker, Nate followed the suggestion. Wrapped his fingers around his cock, which was rock hard and wet at the tip, and closed his eyes as he worked himself. He made a face as though it hurt. Hancock brushed his fingers against Nate’s lips, feeling the small, sharp puffs of breath, then went back to stroking his hair until Nate turned his face into the ragging fabric of the flag and came with a wrecked sob, all over the wet patch of moonshine and dirty water. 

He looked down at it, and in a raw voice said, “I can - “

“Leave it,” Hancock told him. “Place has seen a lot worse, you don’t wanna know.”

Nate was bigger than him in every way, and fucking heavy, but he managed to pull the man up to his feet, and over to the couch. “Jet?” Hancock asked. “A drink? A smoke?”

There wasn’t a coherent reply, just Nate holding his head and scrubbing his face. Hancock picked up a blanket as he went to fetch himself the tin of tobacco and hubflower and another glass of moonshine for Nate. He dropped the blanket over Nate’s bare shoulders, and pressed the glass into his hands before sitting down next to him. 

Nate mumbled something to himself. “I need to talk to Codsworth.”

“Well, shit,” Hancock snorted. “That ain’t what I expected to hear. Do I wanna know?”

“You don’t,” Nate laughed, hollow, and shook his head. “You really don’t.”

Hancock nodded, keeping himself occupied crumbling tobacco and dried flower buds into a little piece of paper and rolling it between his fingers. He blunted the end, then wet the edge of the paper with the tip of his tongue, sealing it. He lit it, sucking in a few lungfuls of rich smoke, before pasing the joint to Nate. 

The other man closed his eyes as his cheeks hollowed. He exhaled slowly, and then looked down at the cigarette between his fingers. “How… how the hell did you know?” 

“Three mentats and a lifetime of being elbows deep in filth. Nah, brother, you ain’t got much of a poker face. Humiliation turns you on, plain to see, and there ain’t nothing unusual about that. Tricky part was figuring out how to talk to a fancy pre-war lad like you. The whole housewife thing, it ain’t exactly common anymore. Maybe some folks in Diamond City, some crazy old loons like the Cabots, your pal Codsworth - but mostly, that’s gone down the drain.”

Curling into the blanket, Nate leaned against the back of the couch. He took another drag from the cigarette, and passed it back, his head drooping. 

“You’re good at it,” he said. There was something terribly frank in his gaze, afraid and admiring and so much a child that Hancock had to remind himself he’d seen this man tripping on psycho, cutting down raiders like razorgrain, snarling and fucking like an animal. But not now. This was that look people got when you cornered them in their softest places. “Do you… think it’s weird?”

Hancock stared at him for a moment. Then he gave in to the urge to ruffle Nate’s hair, although he kept it quick, rougher than he wanted to. “You gotta watch yourself, brother,” he rasped. “You you talk like that around here, and they’re gonna eat you alive.”

Nate laughed, a bit uncertain, still searching for an answer.

“Yeah. It’s weird.” Hancock let the words dangle, watched Nate’s reaction. He wanted him to really feel it, really taste all that fear and shame he carried around with himself, but some selfish part of him also wanted to see him snap, wanted to see whether this was the point where he’d turn back and bite.

He saw it gather, the hurt and the stormy frown, and just as Nate was on the cusp of getting to his feet, Hancock continued. “Never got what the whole deal was with gals before the war. Why they put up with half the bullshit you gave ‘em. Not you personally, I guess. Or did ya?”

That cut Nate’s fury at the root. He almost flinched, and his eyes widened, and for a moment, Hancock had to wonder. He’d seen Nate around women, Daisy and Fahrenheit and even crabby Marcy Long, and yeah, he did treat them different from how normal folks might, but then, Nate treated everyone differently. That inward turn of Nate’s gaze, the way his brow furrowed and he bit his tongue, he was thinking about something. Remembering. Maybe he had done some gal wrong. But in the end, he let go, his frown fading into something merely sad.

Hancock nudged his bare foot peeking out from the blanket, curling one finger under the arch of his heel. Nate gasped, startled, and kicked with a snort. “Ya said something ‘bout clothing,” Hancock grinned. “Want me to buy ya pretty dress?”

That tickled laughter from Nate, soft and relieved and belly-deep. Honest laughter. “No. Seriously, Hancock, no. I don’t wanna - that’s not my thing. Unless you -” He bit his lip, thinking. “If you, uh… if you make me wear it, that could be… yeah.”

“We got all winter,” Hancock promised him. 

  
  
  


**4 - Codsworth**

“Codsworth! I’ve been looking for you.”

It was always a delight to see Mr Hale and the boy. Even if the young man wasn’t, strictly speaking, what one would call a bundle of joy. Not anymore. Codsworth knew he was programmed to feel distress at the thought that he had failed to prevent the boy’s disappearance, that he had not been there to teach him manners when he most needed it, but he was quite certain that he would have felt the same of his own accord.

He was glad that Mr Garvey had asked him to travel to Graygarden last spring. It had been a pleasure to make the acquaintance of so many of his kind, and brought him other places, too - Miss Edna, much as Codsworth still had to adjust his mental processes to accept the fact that she had married a human, was otherwise a wonderful and highly refined conversationalist. 

He had asked her if she ever experienced the dissonance of feeling as you were programmed to feel, and she had agreed. *All the time*, Mr Codsworth, *all the time*. That answer had stimulated him for weeks, keeping him quite occupied until the next time he had the pleasure to travel to Diamond City on Mr Garvey’s behalf, and when they met again, he had been so forward. *Why, do you think, is it that some of our kind never experience that knowledge? Why do some of us feel, but never know that we feel?*

Miss Edna’s reply had perhaps been colored by her peculiar proclivities. *It is the people around us who are midwives to our conscience*, she’d replied, with fondness in her voice. 

Codsworth was too polite, and too discreet, to explain to her that she was obviously quite mistaken. Looking back, he was certain that his personhood was an accident, and had occurred at some point during his long, lonely vigil at Sanctuary. A processing error, his programming warped by the internal contradictions of tending to an empty house. Divided by zero. If there was a midwife to his conscience, it was the absence of people.

And yet the fact that Mr Hale rarely made the journey up to Sanctuary was no small part of the reason why Codsworth now spent most of his time at the Castle. That, and he was quite proud of the cause his former master championed. It was another case of that cognitive dissonance rooted in parallels: he was programmed to think it grand, but also conscious of the fact that it truly was grand. 

He thought all this in the few nano-seconds it took him to reply, 

“You’ve been looking for me, Sir?” The ‘sir’ was not a slip, because nothing Codsworth said or did was unintentional. It was an indulgence, allowing himself to call Mr Hale that for old time’s sake. Once per conversation, no more. “I hope all is well with you and young Shaun.” 

“Yeah, everything’s fine.” Mr Hale’s smile was as bright as Shaun’s expression was sullen, but it was slightly strained. “Do you have a moment? Well, a couple of hours, more like.”

Codsworth’s programming yielded a small burst of embarrassment. His master ought not to ask for his time, but to take it for granted. Yet this time, Codsworth did not agree with the algorithm. He noted it, but chose to feel grateful instead - grateful, because this was kindness, a deliberate effort on Mr Hale to treat him as a person. Codsworth did not require such consideration, but he did appreciate it a great deal. 

“Most certainly,” he said, with the modulation that was filed under “warm.03” and a genuine feeling of care. 

“I was trying to teach Shaun to cook,” Mr Hale said, with an embarrassed grin. 

“But he can’t,” Shaun muttered down at his side. “A complete waste of time and resources.” 

Mr Hale sighed, and met Codsworth’s gaze. There was something apologetic in it, and pleading, and something else, a sliver of guilt, which was an all too familiar expression from him, if rarer these days. “Perhaps I should have spent my time at home learning from you, Codsworth,” he said. 

Human memory, Codsworth understood, was very different from his own. Not that his own was perfect at all times. He was certain that two hundred years without maintenance had left him with a large amount of corrupted data, but the memories he did have came to him with crystal clarity and sharp definition. Humans could not remember their childhood well, often their earliest memories were entirely lost to them. Shaun, even the original version of him, would not have remembered Codsworth. But Codsworth remembered his existence from day one, and he did recall that afternoon as if it were now. And yet, those early memories were different. There was so much he had not understood then. 

Mr Hale then, ordering him to switch off. Mr Hale now, older by two years and two hundred, his hair grown even longer, his shave less close, and the guilt on his features gentler, less painful. 

“I say,” Codsworth said. He did not need to let his surprise show, but he chose to, just slightly, in the way he bobbed back in the air and let his voice hitch a little. He wanted Mr Hale to understand. “Well, young Shaun is at just the right age to learn, isn’t he?”

Shaun turned those dark eyes to Codsworth. The long lashes were Mr Hale’s, and the delicate nose was Mum’s, but the expression that said, *I’m twelve and I already know more than my Dad will ever know* was all his own. Or perhaps that belonged to poor Master Shaun, the original, because Shaun, too, existed at that faultline between truth and simulation. 

Codsworth let his jet burn a little lower, sinking down to Shaun’s height. “I should think you’d have quite the knack for cooking,” he confided, “seeing as it’s all chemistry, and you’re so diligent in your studies!”

Apparently, this had not occurred to Shaun, because he looked doubtful for a moment, well aware that he was being guided towards something he didn’t wish to do, but he was also too smart not to realize that Codsworth was right. “I guess.”

“Maybe that’s why I keep ruining the stew,” Mr Hale said in good humor as they turned towards the house he had built on the farmland now stretching around the Castle’s walls. He had had help from Mr Sturges and a few of the Minutemen and the coursers, who, even freed, tended to be drawn to him and the boy. But the house was still his own, in ways that the house in Sanctuary had never been, and Codsworth thought he understood why as he watched Mr Hale move through his own kitchen - at the old place, Mr Hale had lived like a caged animal, not allowed to range free, but here the clutter and the dust was as much his own as dishes piling up in the sink and the bottle half-filled with cigarette stubs left by Mr Hancock. 

His programming was horrified, but the conscious part of Codsworth was preoccupied with tenderness, and different, unusual thought: what if Miss Edna had been right all along? What if Mr Hale had had some part in Codsworth’s becoming? By being trapped in contradictions and trying to break out of them, had he set an example, however unwitting? Had his strangeness been the seed around which Codsworth’s own failures had grown into a person, like the oyster enclosing a grain of sand with mother of pearl?

“So we were trying to make stew,” Mr Hale said. “But I guess we could do something a little more ambitious, with you telling us what to do. Maybe pasta? Or bread.”

“Perhaps we should tidy up a bit before we start,” Codsworth suggested gently. 

He was not testing Mr Hale. He would never presume to do that. Codsworth was merely giving him a chance to prove himself. 

Mr Hale glanced at the mess on the counter and the stove, and turned to him with a knowing smile. 

“I’ll do that,” he said. “You two decide what you wanna cook.”


End file.
